Gadling

Russians + Vodka + 35,000 feet = Trouble.

That’s the formula that played out on a recent flight from Houston to Frankfurt. Two Russian sailors reportedly polished off the 2 liter bottle of vodka they’d bought at Duty Free and promptly began running wild on board the plane (police are not confirming which airline was involved).

The two men smoked cigarettes in the bathroom and went up and down aisles “frightening passengers,” according to the Associated Press. They also reportedly attempted at several intervals to use their mobiles (“Hey man, I’m so wasted!”).

The flight crew eventually ordered the men to their seats and the two were arrested on the tarmac by German police when the plane landed. One admitted to causing a disturbance and was released after paying a fine. The other, more contrarian, wouldn’t cop to anything and is awaiting a court hearing.

The European Union as a whole may not be too keen on so-called “all body scanners” at their airports — the bloc voted them down earlier this month — but Germany is still going ahead and testing out the technology.

Germany’s interior ministry announced yesterday that in the coming weeks it was going to begin “laboratory tests” of these scanners — known in Europe as ‘naked scanners’ — in an effort to see if it’s possible to produce images with these devises that do not show passengers naked.

The technology is controversial, of course, because in the devises that have been tested at airports in the US, the images do show passengers naked, for all intents and purposes. This enables security to more easily detect concealed weapons and other contraband.

The devises have been tested at Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport, but have not appeared elsewhere in Europe.

A friend of mine recently sent me this article from the Wall Street Journal about the true cost an airline incurs flying your luggage. In the relatively new era of baggage fees, it’s probably fair to question just how expensive it’s been for airlines to handle baggage.

The answer: $15 a bag. The WSJ arrived at this number through some good deductive reporting, since most major airlines claim they do not actually know the per-bag breakdown of their baggage costs (which, of course, is complete bull).

What’s in that $15? Well, about $13 per bag in labor costs and another $1-$2 in fuel costs (I’m really summarizing here — the article does a much better breakdown of costs).

So it’s not a coincidence that most major carriers are charging $15 for your first piece of checked luggage. Yet for some reason, airlines themselves are loath to admit this, most saying they set their baggage fees not strictly based on costs.

One airline official seem to suggest that the costs for flying your luggage might actually be lower, since in a very defensive response to a question from the WSJ he told the newspaper, “I hope you would agree that we are allowed to make a profit.”

Thanks, Ed.